The five moved into the woods, then along the scrubby terrain of an area unfamiliar to Hannah. The rope assured her captors that she would not be trying to get away again, and just to make certain, a few additional bindings were added. While in the woods, Eldon stopped long enough to bind her hands together so she could hardly hold Little Jenny’s reins. Then as they were moving along a ridge, another member of their party lassoed her about the neck just for sport.
“Um, um,” the bearded fellow mused. “The sight of a woman bound makes me hard between the legs,” he drawled. “Can’t wait to look at those pretty titties of hers. You suppose we could bare them just to see what we got in store?” He called to Eldon.
“You got nothin’ in store, Brady, if you don’t mind yourself. Cain wants her intact, and you know what that means.”
“Hell, he won’t know what we do now, long as we dress her back up before we get to the ranch. C’mon.” This urging came from the man directly behind Hannah, the one she hadn’t seen who flicked her with his horsewhip when Eldon wasn’t looking.
That sort of banter went back and forth for nearly an hour, until Eldon finally stopped, announcing that they’d take a break to water the horses by the banks of a swift-flowing stream.
Hannah was pulled from her horse and told to sit on a large flat rock while the men did their business in the bushes and the horses drank their fill. The youngest of the group of men seemed oddly out of place. He was a fresh-faced youth without a beard or surly expression or the malice of the others.
“You don’t want to be doing this, do you?” Hannah spoke to him privately while the others were engaged elsewhere and not watching.
He shrugged. “I ain’t in charge, ma’am.”
“But surely you know this is wrong?”
He shrugged again. This was getting her nowhere but she had to try. “Just slip these bonds from me and I’ll quietly walk away. You can do that, can’t you?” she implored him. “Please? You know it’s the right thing to do.”
For a moment, she thought she had the young man’s interest, but before he could do her bidding, she felt a hand on her shoulder, pulling her around and dragging her to her feet. Eldon Tremaine.
“You fool bitch!” he seethed, slapping her face hard enough to knock her to the ground. “Ya know I was gonna be nice to you, not let my boys play around, but since you’re such a scheming harlot, I’ll let them have these titties of yours.” He swiped his hand at the front of her dress and tore it down, popping the buttons open, leaving Hannah’s breasts exposed beneath her sheer chemise. That tiny garment was sacrificed as well, until her bared flesh showed, chilled by the dampness of the autumn air.
Hannah trembled, ready at that point for almost anything, expecting the rape to begin long before she reached Cain’s ranch.
“Go ahead, feel her up,” Eldon said, after taking a swipe at the warm soft flesh of Hannah’s breasts. They rolled across his rough hands, compelling him to reach right in with his mouth and suck the nipples until they were firm and red and glistening in the mellow glow of the afternoon. Deep inside her crotch, a terrible and wicked desire fermented. She pushed it back with every force of will that she could muster. Eldon backed off laughing, as though he knew her fight. Of course, the crude man couldn’t know her feelings or her thoughts, but still she blushed.
“Go, ahead,” he prompted his friends. The three each took a turn with her, relishing the feel and taste and sweet perfume of a woman’s fair skin. Hannah closed her eyes and grimaced while her flesh was insultingly mauled. Despite the disparaging show, she bore up under their taunts without letting on how much she suffered. By the time they finished, her breasts were blotchy red and her nipples were sore.
“Gotta get going, boys,” Eldon told the three. “The little lady gets to walk from here. I think she needs some exercise, huh?” He stared down at her from his horse and scowled. Then he spit a wad of foul tobacco beside her and cackled derisively as he headed back north.
The five set out again with the four young men mounted on their horses. The young one had Little Jenny in tow behind him, while Eldon took up the lead with Hannah walking at his side. She remained securely bound and he frequently tugged the rope around her neck, just to let her know what she risked should she resist. Her breasts remained bare to the cooling air and the wind and the thicket of vines and bushes they passed through. Her skin was soon scratched and her dress torn as they forced her through the bramble. When they broke out into open ground, Eldon picked up speed and expected Hannah to keep up with the faster pace. She stumbled and fell several times, and was dragged for a few feet before the man paused long enough for Hannah to get back on her feet. Where the rope scraped her throat the flesh was becoming raw.
“Keep up, bitch,” he scowled at her regularly, while giving the rope another yank.
“Please, this is hurting me. Certainly Mr. Cain won’t want his prize damaged.” Saying this gave her some feeling of power, even as another spasm in her belly warned her against her own unwelcome response.
“Better back off,” one of the other men called to her captor when Hannah stumbled one more time and she choked as he dragged her. “You know what Cain told you.”
That was enough to change things one more time. Eldon stared down at her from above considering the situation and the time to day.
“We got a ways to go, lady. Ya can take it on horseback or ya can take it walkin’. Ether way, if you don’t behave yourself, yer not gonna like it.” He snarled, then motioned to the young one, who brought Little Jenny to the front of the line. “Mount up,” Eldon ordered, “we gotta git.”
Though Eldon would have her try on her own, it was impossible for Hannah to mount her horse with her hands bound. She finally got a boost from behind that lifted her into the saddle. They took off, with Hannah glad for just this tiny quantity of mercy.
It would be the last she would be afforded for quite some time.
The sky was dark with stars emerging in a pale blanket above when the quartet of men with their captive victim rode into the stables of what appeared to be a sizeable ranch.
Hannah was dumped inside a stall, along side a young colt. There her hands were briefly untied and then bound again behind her back. Her feet were bound the same. There was now no question of escape.
“Mister Cain will be seeing you soon, lady. You’d best get some rest,” she heard Eldon say as he closed the stall door and clicked the heavy padlock locking her in.
Hannah’s lips were parched from thirst and her stomach growled with no food, but sleep managed to fend off those needs. She was too exhausted for tears, too exhausted to worry, too exhausted for anything but the emptiness of a mindless sleep. Hiding in her thoughts as she drifted off was the knowledge that this latest trial with Jarrett Cain and his brood was just getting started. What terrible price would she pay now? What horror? What reprehensible stirrings would invade her body?
Fate. It must be fate. Somehow, in some way, she would bear up. She knew that. A woman in such circumstances has no other choice.
CHAPTER NINE
A cock crowed. There were stirrings in the stables. Footsteps. Voices. The smell of coffee making her dizzy. Intense hunger made her entire body seize up.
“Ooo, now, ain’t she sweet?” A syrupy-tongued youth leaned on the stall door and gazed down at Hannah, who lay like a possum in fetal position, eyes still closed, though she heard every word. “You think he’ll let us have a piece of her pretty ass?” the young man asked the older man who stood beside him. He slurped a drink from his mug, while Hannah smelled the scent of alcohol on their breath as keenly as she smelled the coffee.
“I think the bitch is ripe for pluckin,” his friend replied.
“What’s Eldon mean, work her, huh?”
“You remember that little whore we had in here a few months ago? Short, sassy little thing with the great big titties.” He cupped his hands in front of him in demonstration of the woman’s size.
“Yeah, s
he had a fine little, sweet-smelling cunt. Coulda humped her for hours. You think we get to have this one like that?”
“Not sure, but remember how we worked her like a buckin’ stallion? She was all ready to fight until we broke her of that.”
“So we break this one too?”
“It’ll make her soft and easy as one of Madam Evie’s drunken sluts.”
The stall door opened and the two men entered. One unbound Hannah’s feet, the other untied her hands. They shoved a crust of bread in her hand and a cup of cider.
“Eat up!”
Hannah devoured the meager meal with relish, even though the bread was stale and the cider turning hard. Anything in her stomach was better than the emptiness that gnawed on her like a teeth-gnashing dog. When she was finished, she hoped for more. But instead of another helping, the men pulled her to her feet, and shoved her through the stable and outside into the open air.
“Piss in the bucket, lady,” the young man with tousled wheat-colored hair pointed to a tin bucket on the ground.
For some time, Hannah stared at the two without moving, her eyes fixed on their scowling faces. The young one looked a little frightened of her severe expression. Her jaw was clenched, her eyes hard-bitten and cold. He was about to back down on the request when the older man, with the funny glint in his black eyes and a deep scar across his cheek moved in one step closer until he and Hannah were close enough to smell the other’s breath. His stunk enough to make her belly clench in a wave of nausea. “Squat, lady, unless you want me to raise your skirt for you so we can watch real close. Or maybe you’d like that, eh?”
Hannah’s fierce feelings would not budge, but she saw no way to avoid the demeaning order without heaping on more humiliation. She’d have to choose her battles, and this was not one to fret about. She stepped to her side, and lifted her skirt enough so she could straddle the bucket. Then she squatted down over the opening, and with a finger tugging her drawers aside, she let her bladder release. The stream of warm liquid bounced off the sides of the bucket, sounding like rain on an old tin roof. It finally ended with a few pinging droplets.
The two men pulled her upright and she stepped away from the bucket.
“Dump it in the bushes,” the older man said. His was a tone of constant scolding. “You gotta do anything else? Huh?” he asked.
Figuring that he was referring to her bowels, she replied, “No, I don’t.”
“Good. Then you’ll be ready for the first workout.”
Hannah dumped the bucket of piss in some nearby bushes, noting that the outhouse was just a few yards away. She could clearly see where her life amidst these men would take her. She returned to the two gloating fellows trying to distance herself from the emotional knot of anguish inside. Ready to move on to more abuse, the young man tossed a rope around her neck, and the older man led her into an exercise ring.
“Don’t we got a girl-sized bridle?” the younger man asked the other as he watched the rope cut into Hannah’s lean throat.
“Ack…we’ll find it if we need it,” the man returned. “If the boss thinks she needs the hard work before he uses her.”
Every word the two men spoke assaulted her mind like a constant battering wave—there seemed to be no end. Fear fueled by a diabolical thrill cut already frayed nerves to ribbons. For nearly a half hour, Hannah was run around in circles, while one of the men stood in the middle of the paddock and turned around as he flicked a buggy whip her way to keep her moving at a brisk clip.
“Hands behind your back!” the older one ordered, in a voice laced with lewd intent. “Thrust out those titties! Hold them high!”
Hannah did as she was told. Despite the demeaning intent of the order, she thrust out her naked chest like a plump, proud bird. Her youthful breasts were round and firm and the bared orbs bounced freely as she trotted along. Her pale aureoles drew into thick dark nipples, hardening in the cool morning air. The surrender made her angry and at the same time garnered a surge of energy that determined how she’d react to every new humiliation. While she knew she could not win this battle, she’d fight their plans to rape her spirit.
“Oh, my,” the young man heckled her with a garish grin as he watched from the other side of the paddock fence, “can’t wait to get my mouth on those.”
The older man who held the rope suddenly stopped turning. Hannah stopped too. “Tuck her skirt inside the waistband. I want to see her those purdy ass cheeks wobble like her titties.” The young man eagerly obeyed the order and with diligent care lifted the hem of Hannah’s skirt and exposed her backside below the waist. The drawers beneath were quickly disposed of leaving naked everything from the flanks of her thighs to her ass cheeks to her legs below. Her bare flesh was resplendently lovely in the luminous light of the new day. Their smooth texture was as flawless as porcelain. Yet, as she was ordered to trot again about the paddock in a circle, the beautiful cheeks were intermittently stung with the flick of the whip. Hannah jerked with each mean cut, and some cut deeply, producing angry red marks. Others were simply annoying. Each unnerved her proud, defiant spirit, as Hannah attempted to bravely endure the humiliating treatment with some grace.
“That’s it, pussy, you just keep it up,” the old man mocked her, knowing full well that she was beginning to tire.
Her legs ached and her arms burned from holding them behind her. She feared if she showed her distress and begged for mercy, they’d only bind them again. Soon, every step became more difficult until she was running raggedly just to keep going.
Another man’s voice suddenly cut through the tattered morning air, “She’s had enough for now.” Hannah recognized Eldon’s gruff voice.
Grateful for the reprieve, she stopped and waited to hear her next instructions as if she were some dutiful slave. If it were their aim to make her docile, they certainly were succeeding. She had no will to resist.
“Let her rest and we’ll work her again later. The boss wants to see us.”
Hannah was returned to the stall where she was given a biscuit that was fresher than the bread had been that morning and a bright, crisp red apple. Again, she ate with relish. She slept while she was left alone, finding it easy to drift off. Every muscle in her ached from the hard trek the day before and the physical demands that drained her resources. How ironic that she’d bowed out of a trip to Springfield partly because she couldn’t face the arduous journey, only to find herself in circumstances far more grueling than a trip with her husband and sister could ever be.
Sleep, ah blessed sleep! She could for a time escape the unhappy fate she’d drawn to her. She prayed for some way out; but held out little hope.
Later that morning, and again in the afternoon, Hannah was worked in the paddock like a training horse. In the afternoon, the cutting rope around her neck was replaced by a bridle and bit that fit over her head in the same fashion as a bridle and bit would fit a horse. These added measures to shame her cut away her pride even further and replaced her defenses with ready resignation. What else could she do but relent to their biting scowls and crude jibes, the nasty sting of the whip as it marred her flesh—both breasts and ass—and a regimen that crushed her spirit in the face of constant weariness? She had been bested. Their scheme worked.
But for what purpose?
Hannah assumed there was some sexual outcome awaiting her. But why this? Why bother when she’d already altered her morals to circumstance, and would no doubt do the same if she were ordered to do the same again.
Still, as she lay down at the end of her second day of captivity, there’d been nothing but innuendoes to suggest what came next. How long would they torture her this way? Yes, she knew with little doubt that the sexual demands would be coming soon. She was being prepared for Jarrett Cain, the leader of this pack of savage brutes, and so far he’d not shown his face.
“Am I not to see Mr. Cain?” Hannah at last asked Eldon when her final session in the paddock was over for the day and she was being led back to her bed of straw
.
“That’s for him to say, not me,” he answered.
“Surely, he’ll want to know I’m here.”
“Oh, he knows, lady. Don’t think he doesn’t.”
“Please then, won’t you speak to him for me?”
The man laughed as he scowled. “I ain’t speakin for no one. You wait like the rest of us wait and keep your mouth shut if know what’s good for you.”
Again, she was given a meager meal that she gulped down to take the edge off her constant hunger.
Eldon put her to bed for the night after his blacksmith forged irons for her ankles and wrists and they were securely locked in place. The heaviness of the metal drove her mindset deeper into the realms of surrender. She couldn’t bear to think of what she’d become now and would be the following day. Had this really started with Beau? Was he truly the reason she was paying these dreadful prices? Or was it something in her character that needed to be so reigned in? So vilely punished? Over and over, the questions repeated until she finally fell asleep.
***
The morning of the following day was much the same as the previous. Hannah rose, peed in front of two sniggering ranch hands and was then led to the outhouse to do the rest of her toilet—thankfully in private. She ate again, stale bread even older and showing signs of mold, this time with a piece of meat.
Again, she entered the paddock for another workout with bridle and bit that made her overworked muscles hardly able to move. Her chest and ass were bared for the titillation of the men, and so the blows of her trainers’ whips could inspire her attention to the strict form they sought. None of this made any sense to Hannah, but it was undoubtedly a fine show for these raunchy cowboys. At least a dozen of Cain’s men came to watch. She refused to look at their lewd faces, but she couldn’t help but hear their constant hoops and hollers while she trotted and strutted about the ring. It didn’t occur to her that this display of flesh and these nasty sessions would be all that these rowdy men would have of her. She assumed she’d give up her body for their sexual pleasure just as she had before when she was raped in her own home.
The Humiliation of Hannah Page 9
